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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25582483">Solitary</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/wavehitshore/pseuds/wavehitshore'>wavehitshore</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Friendship/Love, M/M, Past Relationship(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:00:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,098</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25582483</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/wavehitshore/pseuds/wavehitshore</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Albus all by himself.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Solitary</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            A translation of

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/658009">寂寞者</a> by Farinelli.
        </li>

    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Albus has never imagined himself to be a nostalgic person. He never realised this until he remembers G.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Albus had never truly thought of G after their break-up. Looking back at the time when they were in love, they studied magic, made love, cheered up his sister, and did whatever they wanted. All the days, every day, ecstasy was like a ray of sunshine, of eternal warmth, sipping into Albus’ flesh and bones. No magic or love potion in the world is more realistic than the days they spent together.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Ariana died, their bond was destroyed. In the face of death, Albus found out his connection with G turned out to be far more fragile than he had imagined. All the joys are now shattered into shards of sharp glass, constantly stinging him, reminding him of the wound deep inside his heart, the wound that even the tears of a phoenix cannot heal.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mourning is a prolonged and endless journey——a passage that bewilders its travellers, for the travellers could not even grasp the distance they have progressed. Lights never shine upon this dim road. Along it, you cannot gently swing your wand and whisper Lumos, you can only walk in darkness, because vision becomes useless inside sadness. Albus does not know whether he is unable, or unwilling to move, perhaps both. If he dies from the torment of remorse, will the grief dignify his death?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ariana is dead, and G has left. Albus had never thought of him, never consciously, meticulously dwelled on him. Although G’s name is always mentioned around Albus: G returned to Europe, he convened a massive group of believers; under his ideological preach, the belief in magic has risen and spread across the land of Europe; even people in America faraway were shaken by this, so on and so forth. No matter where G was, no matter what G did, someone would tell him, notify him with an owl. Perhaps it is because of their intimacy in the past; reports of G can always find their way to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As the void of losing a sibling continues to devour him, thinning Albus’ flesh, his self-consciousness gradually fades, losing its shape and shadow.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>※ </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Contrasting to Albus, his brother Aberforth visits Ariana with a flower bouquet every day. Although he claims that he goes to remember her, the truth is loneliness is driving him mad. Before her death, Ariana was the centre of Aberforth’s life. Albus believes that Aberforth understands of his own unwillingness to move forward, to leave behind the days accompanied by Ariana; he fears, fears that even if he merely moves one step forward, Ariana would vanish completely. Whilst they still preserve a few photos and a couple of her portraits (She usually stood outside of the frame, only Aberforth can persuade her to be inside. But he is not proud of that anymore.), the images become blurry, turn to illusion. Nothing is clear, and more realistic than memory, nothing as devastating as well.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What about me? Sometimes Albus questions himself. Night falls, laying on the bed, he refuses to close his eyes, to wake up after a night of slumber, to witness the morning sun rising by the window. The sun tells him: time moves on, along with Ariana’s death, drifting down into the ocean like a stream. ‘Tis an everlasting circle, imperishable eternity.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If death flows, then how could life run dry? Laying on his bed, Albus contemplates in tranquility. His limbs are stiff, no movements occur but the beating of the heart. Just a pond of dead water. He recites poems for himself in silence, but what comes out in his mind is the voice of G, the tone of G. Once he read poems for him. These were the poems he wrote, the poems belonged to them. Under the tree, G dipped his dark feather pen into the black of the night sky, and guided it gently across the parchment. G was always so pale. Blue veins run through his fingers like creeks. The feather pen leaned close to his thumb, like two ballet dancers carrying each other. A tremor, a quiver, a gasp, a blow, all can be calmly released within the embrace. If death flows, life too is a river.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What about love? Albus asks out loud against the ceiling.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What about love? He asked him once. He asked him beneath the hundred-year-old tree; he asked him when he was writing poems. When the shooting star flashed across their eyes under the starry midnight sky, he asked him, “Does love flow”? When he asked him, the stars stopped breathing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>G released the pen in his hand; the dark feather glided down from the parchment and fell into their shadows. A spot of ink on the paper blossomed into a leaden flower——like their hands holding, like the drips of blood falling when they playfully bit on each other, as if G’s dribble had appeased his drouth. Enchanted by the call of desire, Ablus did not hear the shivering noise echoing deep inside G. With little time to reflect, Albus already fell into his embrace.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>※ </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Albus had never truly thought of G. Once he thought his tears would run dry, but they never truly ceased to flow. They just turned slower and quieter; so subtle was the progress, in the end they simply stopped creating sound when falling. Albus had forbade all sounds related to the thought of G——his tears, his recitation, his caress, and he himself. Albus had stopped remembering, at least, he hoped to. He hoped to choose to hold the thought secretly inside his palm. But his wish never came true, for he had betrayed himself and Ariana. Everything keeps replaying inside his mind: G’s voice, G’s poems, G’s embrace. In his mind, G was selfish and cunning, holding him back by calling Albus’ name with that passionate voice over and over, like the night they whispered endearments into each other's ear. Albus could not escape from the tremor of longing. He tried to escape, he implored, he surrendered, he delved into the ocean of love for the shape of sex.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Albus had never truly thought of G, but he is always on his mind, deep, deep inside. Sunrise, sun fall, whenever G recites poems in his memory, Albus would hold himself gently like the way G did, and he would have lust run freely through his veins, have G repeated his name in his mind. Night after night, when the dreamlike midnight falls, he cries out his name into his bed.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You can visit her website here if you are interested in her work:<br/>https://dracula12047.wixsite.com/fanficbyf<br/>Please note that:<br/>Unlike Farinelli, I don't have much knowledge regarding the HP fandom, please let me know if I got anything wrong.</p>
<p>Thank you for reading.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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